Medio Systems goes global through T-Mobile partnership

Mobile search and advertising services provider Medio Systems Inc. is expanding its base of operations to Europe though a partnership with T-Mobile International. The deal allows for the launch of a new mobile search service to T-Mobile European t-zones customers, based on Medio's mobile search technology.

Under the agreement, Medio's mobile advertising will be a service that T-Mobile offers internationally, and it will begin before year's end.

" It's certainly big news because it's a tier-1 operator in Europe that is not just giving away the keys to Google or Yahoo or another brand for mobile search," said Michael Libes, Medio's CEO. "Instead, T-Mobile is actually taking control of its business, putting their brand forward and providing this service to their customers as themselves."

The t-zones mobile content search solution already has been deployed in the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

The service also will be rolled out in the Czech Republic later this month.

"Mobile carriers don't want to be in the ad business. So, we will sell the ads, Libes told DM News. "We have our Medio Mobile Now ad network and we have a sales force that now exists in Europe, and they'll be going out and talking to advertisers and telling them about this opportunity.

"We have search inventory, that's the premium content, that's the premium inventory that advertisers like, because it's self-targeted," he added. "We know what people want because they've just told us. So, we've had no problem filling that inventory."

Earlier this year, Medio Systems and End2End, Europe's provider of managed service solutions for mobile data, joined forces to set up a mobile search facility for European operators.

Through that partnership, Medio Systems increased its activity in Europe through End2End's managed service framework. Medio Systems and End2End now deliver a comprehensive mobile search facility.

This is proof that the mobile industry prefers the managed service approach to deliver new services, according to the Medio.

"We think that for ads to be the most relevant for mobile users, they need to be tied to something they are searching for," Libes said who described the company as " soup-to-nuts search advertising."

Libes went on to explain that Medio has the sales force, finds the advertisers, places sales in a database, selects which ads to show, places them on the screen, tracks the clicks, charge the advertisers, take the money and share it with the operator.

"Really, there are some deals in the industry that are ad based, but this kind of flips around the value chain and the revenue flows," Libes said. "In other words," he said, "we collect the money we share with operators as opposed to them paying us."